musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
of car crashes and thwarted resolutions










some of what I noticed this year . . . .
Because sometimes it’s the little things that revive a dispirited heart . . . .
May each of us
remember to notice
the beauty
that surrounds us.
Blessings to you
& Happy New Year
…. and …
Thank You…
for reading my words here,
for appreciating my art,
for following along
with my quirky artsy outdoorsy life.
I am grateful
to count each of you
among my many blessings.
Namaste.
Noticed deep in a Vermont wood, where few people appear to have trodden…..
the unusual transformation of a landscape
It’s a few hours away from the first day of winter and I suppose I should be writing something solstice-y or festive-y or fa-la-la-la-la-lish
But as much as I love this time of year, with the relentless sunshine we’ve been having this month where the skies look more like summer, I’m going to take a few moments to share something I’ve been wanting to share since August:
It all started just a few miles away from my studio, over on Santa Fe’s RailTrail.
One of may favorite places in all of Santa Fe, the Rail Trail winds from the center of the city south toward the windswept hills and arroyos that spill outward toward Eldorado and Galisteo. My pup & I especially love morning runs on the trail, our goal always being to get out there early enough to have the path and the sky to ourselves — although there’s often a small coterie of early morning trail revelers with whom we sometimes share the path and greet the day.
Although there are houses within view of the trail, they are fairly scattered among the pinon, such that you get the sense of being alone out on the land. The pathway courses along the old railway line that extends from Santa Fe down to Lamy (our nearest Amtrak station, 13 miles south of the capitol). In recent years the rails have grown weeded since the tourist train that used to frequent this line was halted a few years ago. But the tracks and the tressels remain, and in the morning’s early light they become radiant against the dark purple mesa shadows. The views are gorgeous.
I don’t know how many photos I’ve taken of the light out there, but they number in the hundreds for sure and possibly in the thousands, many of them ridiculously redundant as I photograph again and again the same views, always with an eye toward painting them eventually. Finally, about a year ago I decided to actually DO something with one of those photos:
I started a painting — a fairly large one for me and my tiny studio: an oil on a stretched 24” x 36” canvas of one of my most favorite views out there on the Rail Trail.
If you’re like me then you love “before & after” and “makeover” and progression photography. With that in mind, I thought it would be cool to share the stages of this painting’s development, particularly since this painting takes a most extraordinary and unexpected turn.
Per usual I first stained the canvas a warm hue — in this case light orange mixed with sienna. I do this because — as you may recall me saying in previous posts — ideally flecks of that underlying color will appear in the final painting, adding a unifying visual effect — in this case an overall warmth. And the land — the earth — out here just exudes warmth, especially under the intense blue sky.
Next I blocked out the darkest areas with a flat dark color (ultramarine blue mixed with alizarin crimson and burnt sienna), and then started cutting in with areas of light, all the while slowly carving the large masses into to smaller shapes.
Then I really started looking into the grassy weedy area which was just a confusion of colors and textures.
I felt it was getting too distracted by the different colors in that area, and decided to simplify it again (with the intention of distinguishing more details and colors later). I also started moving in with more realistic colors. At this point the distant mountains and sky felt convincing, as did the the shaded hillside on the left. But overall I was frustrated by the whole thing, especially what to do with that foreground.
So I poured some Gamsol (solvent) on it, and let it dribble down the face of the painting, melting and melding the paint in its path. NOW it was starting to look interesting!
And that’s how I left it FOR MONTHS, hanging on a wall in my studio, wondering what the heck to do to it next.
For months and months it sat on my wall, frustrating me.
Until….
I climbed Wheeler.
Where I was enthralled once again by the beauty of the high mountain landscape.
Enthralled by the late summer afternoon light…. the drama of that descent and the jubilant feeling of having once again successfully summitted New Mexico’s highest peak!
And I JUST HAD TO PAINT IT!!
And what better canvas to use than that bane of my existence hanging on my studio wall…
LET THE TRANSFORMATION BEGIN!
Welcome to my world, where, if you don’t like something, you can just paint over it and start anew!
Descent from the Wheeler Peak Trail ~ by Dawn Chandler ~ 24″ x 36″ ~ oil on canvas
{ this painting is available.}
Okay…. I guess I’m ready now to get back to winter and the solstice and fa-la-la-ing….But first, Hmmm….. maybe I’ll start a new painting of the RailTrail…….
Have a beautiful, joyful, fa-la-la-filled merry everything, everyone!
🙂
creating 60 paintings in 30 days and other bad ideas

The first 20 “traditional landscapes” of the 2017 60:30 Project. Among them scenes of Santa Fe; the Galisteo Basin; Lake Wentworth, New Hampshire; Haines, Alaska; Los Poblanos in Albuquerque; and Taos.
Back in September — because evidently planning to be away for a month on a 4000+-mile road-trip wasn’t time consuming enough — I decided to set a challenge for myself of creating 60 paintings in 30 days. Lots of artists do this sort of thing from time to time, although most artists are smarter and more reasonable than I am and therefore usually set the goal for a much saner (though still challenging) 30 paintings in 30 days.
I don’t know what I was thinking, if I was thinking at all. Maybe because I know how time-consuming planning for a roadtrip and getting my house, personal life and business life in order in anticipation of being absent for a month can be. I know that when undertaking such planning, my art production always takes a hit. So I wanted to keep creating until my departure, despite the distraction of an upcoming trip.
Also, I’ve done daily paintings before. Back in 2006 or so, I created a small 6″ x 6″ landscape oil painting every day in the month of February, and then offered each painting for auction on eBay. Talk about exciting!! Nearly every one of those paintings sold, and it was pretty cool watching some of those bids com in and then shipping dozens of paintings all across the country
And at other times I’ve dedicated whole years to daily paintings, though these we more like dairy entries. Like in 1999…. oh, but maybe I’ll save that story for another blog post…..
Anyhow. the parameters that I set for myself in September were to do a 30 quick little ‘traditional’ landscape paintings. But I also wanted to stretch myself with a bit of play. So I decided that after I completing each traditional landscape, I would use that as the source of inspiration or “jumping off point” for another painting, this one allowing for more “play” and experimentation. Sometimes this second painting was a clear take on the traditional landscape; other times the two bore little if any resemblance. All, though, were fun to create!

A selection of the mixed-media ‘contemporary landscapes’ of the 2017 60:30 painting project. These are fun and loose semi-abstract interpretations of the more “traditional” landscapes done in oil.
Also, September’s 60:30 project was to be more about quantity — getting 60 paintings done — than requiring myself to paint EVERY day. For I just know from past experience that life intervenes and sometimes it’s just impossible to get in the studio some days. In the end though, I did paint most days, though some days I painted more than two while other days I painted none.
And now I have stacks of small paintings taking up space in my studio!
So I’ve decided to make them available to anyone who’s interested, and have a little fun along the way, by putting them on eBay and starting the bidding super low. This means if no one else bids, someone could potentially grab a sweet little painting for a fraction of the usual price, as there will be no minimum reserve price beyond the starting bid.
If, after 24 hours, a painting receives no bids, it will be placed for sale in my online shop at the regular prices. The “buy now price” will be double the usual price, to to encourage people to join in the fun and excitement of bidding.
Here are more details:
Location: ebay.com
Seller Name: taosdawndesigns
Dates: Every day through the month of November, 1 – 30, 2017.
Time of Auction: 7:00pm New Mexico time.
Items: 2 paintings each day: One “traditional landscape” and one “contemporary landscape”
Duration: 24 hours
If a painting receives no bids within the 24-hour auction, it will be placed for sale at the regular price on my online gallery store on Etsy.
30 TRADITIONAL LANDSCAPES
Medium: oil on panel
Size: 5” x 7” x 1/8”
Regular Price: $225
Starting Bid: $60.30* + $9 shipping/packaging
Buy now price: $450 (this is to encourage people to join in on the fun and excitement of the bidding!)
30 CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPES
Medium: acrylic & mixed media on paper mounted on panel
Size: 4” x 6” paper mounted on 5” x 7” x 1/8” panel
Regular Price: $185
Starting Bid: $30.60 *+ $9 shipping/packaging
Buy now price: $370 (this is to encourage people to join in on the fun and excitement of the bidding!)

From the 60:30 project: A quick plein air oil painting from out in the Galisteo Basin, south of Santa Fe. Paintings like these are up for auction on Etsy through the month of November with a starting bid of just 30% of the regular price.
Here are the links for the current auctions (updated 11/10/17); these auctions will end at 7:00 this evening, when the next two auctions will begin. [Read below for how to get on a daily announcement list for the day’s paintings.]
Painting 17 in the 60:30 series
Painting 18 in the 60:30 series
Also, I’ve set it up so that if you’re interested in this project but worried that you might forget to check the auctions, you can receive a daily link to the day’s auction paintings:
Simply send an email to studio@taosdawn.com
with “LET ME KNOW!” in the subject line.
I’ll shoot you a daily message (just through November) with the links for the day’s two auctions.
Important: you can always do a search on eBay for “Dawn Chandler” to find the current auction)
And — if I can get my act together! — I’ll be posting the auctions daily on FaceBook at www.facebook.com/DawnChandlerFineArt/
Also also on Instagram at www.instagram.com/taosdawn/ (where you can view all of the 60:30 paintings via a search for #dawnchandler60in30)

From the 60:30 Project: Many of the paintings are of the Taos area — like this one, from a glorious late summer evening up on The Mesa with friends.
By the way, last night (Thursday November 2nd) concluded the first two auctions and some lucky person in the Southeast won FOR A STEAL these two sweet little paintings of/inspired by an early summer morning up in the “magic aspen forest” above Santa Fe. Basically she just got $500 worth of art for about $100. If you’ve been wanting an original painting of mine, then these November eBay auctions are your chance to score something really fine at a sweet, sweet deal.

Two original paintings of the Santa Fe Forest painted by artist Dawn Chandler and recently auctioned on eBay FOR A STEAL.
Yep. Don’t know what I was thinking — if I was thinking at all…
Now to go ship off these paintings off to their new home in Georgia!
🙂
when a journey goes horribly wrong…. and reveals a forgotten forest along the way

The forest outside my Stowe, Vermont “studio”
As I look out my window just now, I see nothing but a dark tangle of black lines, crisscrossing and knotting up with each other, their shapes carved out by the softest shade of morning, of first light. First this light was pale grey. Now at the base where earth turns to sky, there’s a hint of gold — of softest peach bleeding upward into palest blue. And there now, in the deepest patches of darkness, faint shapes of leaves are revealing. Were I attempting to capture this scene with paint just now rather than with words, I would be struggling with how to convey the color of those leaves — leaves which by day are brilliant gold and crimson, but now are pale ghosts of leaves.
This is why I came here: To be in and observe the Vermont woods again. To breathe in their shifting moods, sifting light. To smell birch bark and beech leaves and pine needles. And maple, of course. To be reminded of the vertical thrust of tree trunks, the tangles of branches, the music of mossy streams. The utter brilliance of sunlit jewel-leaves against shadowed forest.
I came here because for two years I’ve been dreaming of creating a series of paintings based on my long walk across Vermont — a series of semi-abstract paintings inspired by my long solo walk along Vermont’s Long Trail. These imagined paintings would need to be paintings about trees. For the Long Trail is nothing if not a passage through the trees.
So I needed to come back to the forest to remind myself of forest in order to conjure the forest.
But this time, rather than sleeping each night under a thin piece of fabric or on a rustic wood floor after mile upon mile of strenuous hiking, my shelter is a gracious friend’s tiny apartment, tucked on the edge of a gorgeous Vermont wood. Where, each morning, for two weeks, I have watched the woods outside mature and cast away its cloak of autumn to lie in wait of winter. Where, just a few miles from here, I can step onto the very trail that lead me for 274 miles through similar forests and so much more.
But this trip is not what I expected it would be. It’s not the trip I planned.
The best-laid plans of mice and men / Go oft awry
The fact of this expression revealed its truth just two hours into my 2,000+ mile road trip from New Mexico to Vermont, when things went horribly, horribly wrong.
For that’s when my travel companion — Wilson, my sweet 10-year old “Taos purebread” — a female mutt laced with a good bit of black lab — and I made our first pit-stop 150 miles into New Mexico’s eastern desolation.
As Wilson cheerfully hopped out of the back seat of the car, I noticed something wasn’t right: her muzzle looked swollen, with what appeared to be a rash developing across the long bridge of her snout.
By evening — in the middle of Oklahoma — the entire surface of her nose was a ghastly eruption of an open, bleeding wound, the bridge so swollen that the bend of it — the “stop” — between the eyes and top of the snout, which is normally a handsome Labrador profile, was puffed up so badly there was no bend in the bridge at all.
I could spend a couple of blog posts and thousands of words detailing the next 216 hours, as my dog’s beautiful face transformed into a horrifying grotesque and festering wound. How I reached out to friends and family and veterinarians across the country, wondering, ever wondering, if, with every mile eastward I should just turn around and head back to New Mexico.
How I drove for 2000 miles in silence in a perpetual state of anxiety.
How the road became a blur as I choked back sobs of concern wondering if I was doing the right thing by continuing on this trip.
I could spend pages telling of how friends and family and acquaintances threw their doors open to welcome us — my physically wounded pup and my emotionally wounded self.
How people waved off my dog’s blood on their white carpets.
How “cat people” made their homes dog-friendly.
How even “dog haters” cooed at and petted my sweet girl, as she stumbled trying to navigate the world with a wide “cone of shame” around her head. How she leaned in and “hugged” everyone who looked kindly upon her, despite her revolting appearance.
The best veterinarians are good, good people, and we consulted with four across the country (including ours back home, via phone & email).
None had ever seen anything like Wilson’s rash. All were confounded. But all agreed that it was likely an extreme allergic reaction to something — quite possibly (probably?) her new tick medication. Something in the environment? A sign of underlying disease? The tick medication — which she had never had before and which we had applied a few days before our departure — just seemed the likely answer. But none of the vets felt certain about it. “This just isn’t presenting like a typical reaction to tick medication. And the timing of the reaction isn’t quite right… And yet it could be…” Yet what else could it be?
The mystery of it was as distressing as the wound itself.
Finally, after more than a week of concern over Wilson’s raging wound, frustration over the lack of answers, and inspired by a text from My Good Man — “could it be a bite of some sort?” — from my aunt’s kitchen in New Hampshire I did a web search.
Mystery solved.
If you’re really curious and you think you can stomach it, Google “spider bite on dog nose” and there you will find image after image of Wilson’s rash.
I feel 99% sure that Wilson was bit by a venomous spider on the morning of our departure. Likely by Loxosceler reclusa — a brown recluse.
Wilson now, is fine. Remarkably, extraordinarily fine. it’s really almost as if nothing happened at all.

TOP DOG of Vermont!! Just two weeks after Wilson’s horrendous ordeal, we summitted Mount Mansfield, Vermont’s highest peak — and together kissed the benchmark. Photos by Long Trail legend Sylvie “Charger” Vidrine.
But something did happen. And this unexpected happening just two-hours in to our 5-week journey upended my well-laid plans.
For what I imagined this trip to be and what this trip has become are completely different. When I imagined this journey, I imagined some part of each day — even the long driving days — would be spent making art. That at least once each day out on the road Wilson and I would pull over somewhere and I would spend a few minutes sketch or painting a bit of the landscapes we were driving through.
And that once in Vermont, I would spend some part of each day hiking among and communing with the forests and then an even larger part of each day painting and writing, inspired by and conjuring the forests. There would be only a little socializing, as most of my time would be spent in my “studio,” in blissful silence and solitude making art. The planned equation was rather simple:
Forest walks + time alone + deep reflection + quiet + no distractions + writing + painting + painting + painting + [hopefully, too (editing my Long Trail journal, + culling and editing my Long Trail photos)] = immense creative productivity.
But Wilson’s trauma threw me off. I had little energy or time for the kind of deep creative endeavors I originally intended to undertake .Instead the equation of my trip has evolved into this:
Pet needs + town walks + charming cafes + cool breweries + great bookstores + beautiful autumnal country roads + renewed knitting projects + good books + jigsaw puzzles + visits with veterinarians + visits with auto mechanics + conversations with baristas + conversations with barkeeps + conversations with young musicians + visits with dear elders + visits with Philmont friends + visits with childhood friends + visits with Long Trail friends + tea with Instagram friends + conversations with Wilson + conversations with the geese overhead + conversations with the crows overhead + the maple leaves + the birch bark + the river light and the forest light = little creative productivity.

Pure October color along Stowe’s river path.
The realization that, when I pack my car in a few days, there will be no sketchbook filled with drawings, no notebook filled with poems, no boxes bursting with plein air paintings…. That the huge sheets of primed painting papers will return home in their original packing…. That the stack of letters I intended to respond to will come home with me, still awaiting replies…. That my 90-page Long Trail Journal will remain unedited.. That the thousands of Vermont photos will remain, for now, largely unculled. And that my bank statements will reflect my weakness in the face of Vermont’s many sweet & savory & crafty temptations…. The realization of all of this — of not accomplishing most of what I had set out to do on this trip — has been gnawing at the back of my head, keeping me awake for some nights.
And yet, this morning, as Wilson and I walked Stowe’s serene river path, and I paused yet again to take yet another photo of the light through the birches…. and as I sit here in my temporary studio and watch gold leaves flit softly to the ground…. as I look over the few painting studies I HAVE done…. as I look through my hundreds of recent photos of the people and places I have connected with and have been enriched by, I realize this trip this autumn has indeed been about trees, about forests.
Some of those forests I’ve communed with this trip — just as I’d planned.
And even a few of those forests I’ve recalled from my long solo hike, and have begun to paint this trip — just as I’d planned.
But there’s a different kind of forest that has revealed itself to me — one that I hadn’t really set out to explore: The forest of friendships that link like branches across my journey’s and life’s map.
From the high desert of New Mexico, across the plains of Oklahoma and Kansas, to the green hills of western Missouri, the rolling farmland of the Finger Lakes, the steepled towns of Massachusetts, to the gold and crimson back roads of New England and Canada, boughs of friendship have reached out to my pup and me like a mighty embrace.
It turns out this journey has been about trees, after all. About a sacred forest filled with old and new growth, ever rooting, ever blooming, ever teaming with life and love.

From a hike a few days ago with a friend I made during my long walk of 2015 ~ a creek crossing along the Long Trail, just north of Bear Hollow Shelter, Vermont.

Wilson as of this morning. The fur is starting to grow back across her snout where, nearly 3-weeks earlier, a gruesome wound ravaged the entire length of her nose. She may have permanent scarring….but she doesn’t seem to mind.
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. ~ John Muir